LOC11:10
08:10 GMT
TOKYO, Oct 31 (KUNA) -- Japan's central bank maintained its monetary policy on Tuesday, but cut its view on inflation.
At the end of a two-day policy meeting, Bank of Japan's (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and his board colleagues voted 8-1 to keep its current ultra-easy monetary policy, according to a statement released by the BOJ.
"The BOJ will purchase Japanese government bonds so that 10-year bond yields will remain at around zero percent," the central bank said in the statement.
It will conduct purchases of Japanese government bonds at more or less the current annual pace of increase in outstanding holdings at about JPY 80 trillion (USD 707 billion), aiming to achieve the target level of the long-term interest rate specified by the guideline.
The BOJ will also continue applying a negative interest rate of minus 0.1 percent to part of accounts held by financial institutions at the central bank.
Meanwhile, in its quarterly outlook report released on the same day, the BOJ cut its inflation forecast for the current fiscal year to 0.8 percent from an earlier estimate of 1.1 percent.
"Comparing the current projections with the previous ones, the projected rate of increase in the consumer price index (CPI) for fiscal 2017 is somewhat lower due mainly to the effects of a reduction in charges for mobile phones," it said. The timing of the year-on-year rate of change in the CPI reaching around 2 percent will likely be around fiscal 2019, the central bank noted. (end)
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